Bollinger Electric 4x4

[Snagger]

I did read an article a few months ago that someone in Spain had made a prototype battery with 30 times the energy density of Lithium Ion batteries.  How toxic, inflammable, chemically stable and economically viable these will be wasn't mentioned, though a vague comment about astronomical unit price at the moment was made.  But imagine the weigh vs range potential with those batteries..

[deep]

You could do the reverse of inboard disc brakes if you had independent suspension (I had those on the back of my Jag XJ6 back in the day).  A motor for every wheel but the motor bolted to the floor with a driveshaft to the wheel.  Best of both worlds.  Potentially, you could even put a brake disc at the motor end and have even less unsprung weight.

[Bowie69]

Is there any need for a brake disc if you have an electric motor there?

[Snagger]

5 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Is there any need for a brake disc if you have an electric motor there?

I would say so - at high speed, you can use regenerative braking to slow down, but it's not that powerful a retardation device, more of an assistance.  To brake electrically, you could apply motor power in the opposite direction, but that'd generate a lot of heat in the windings awfully fast.  But what about if you lose electrical power for any reason?  It'd be like having no brakes on a petrol car that uses engine braking only, and then having the clutch fail...

[WesBrooks]

Anyone who has ridden a fixed gear bicycle with no brakes gets a real good appreciation for how much work the brakes do!

For emergencies I guess you could short the coil to stop quicker than standard regenerative braking but essentially you are just trying to convert a huge amount of kinetic energy into something else. If you short the coils you are going to change it to heat in the motor requiring the motor to be designed to take that heat and so less efficient in normal usage. Using discs to convert the kinetic to heat is just an easy way to do it. With regenerative braking you are trying to convert that energy from kinetic, to electrical, and into chemical energy with unwanted heat being generated at each point. In a similar way to not being able to get the energy into the battery quick enough when charging (granted some of those problems are on the supply side) you have a similar problem when trying to use regenerative braking for hard stops.

I like the idea of the brakes being a completely different system, but as super capacitors and battery technologies advance I have little doubt that eventually it may get to the point where the hydraulic braking systems we use now are shown to be statistically less reliable than just using the power train to brake. Like others have hinted at the finances have a hell of a weight in these kind of moves and the though of being able to get shot of a complete system would be beneficial for costs. Wouldn't want to pay the indemnity insurance for the people who make that call though. Essentially they will have a figure of an acceptable number of accidents due to system failure rather than saying it will only be used if it is impossible to fail!

With regards to the four motor system I was looking at something very similar before my truck arrived for a radio controlled car. Have the bits still in the loft somewhere. Basically just a robot project but had four wheel steering and I was looking to replace the diffs with a double belt drive to achieve independent wheel control. No real reason why, just because!

[Bowie69]

I guess it depends if you are using brushed or brushless motors, the latter can very easily be made to work as a progressive brake.

[Cynic-al]

20 hours ago, WesBrooks said:

Using compressed air is inefficient.

Agree compressed air is very inefficient but in a congested city in India there should be enough sun to run the compressors so no emissions from power stations or the vehicles apart from heat and noise and it reduces smog which is their main problem. Also much cheaper and less environmentally damaging per vehicle install than battery and quicker to recharge so the efficiency becomes secondary so long as they can get the range they need without having such big tanks that the vehicle is too big and heavy or so high pressure that they would go into space in an accident. Then again atleast you would keep the road flowing

[missingsid]

6 hours ago, Snagger said:

I would say so - at high speed, you can use regenerative braking to slow down, but it's not that powerful a retardation device, more of an assistance.  To brake electrically, you could apply motor power in the opposite direction, but that'd generate a lot of heat in the windings awfully fast.  But what about if you lose electrical power for any reason?  It'd be like having no brakes on a petrol car that uses engine braking only, and then having the clutch fail...

When I test drove a Mitsubishi PHEV the salesman told me not to use the highest rate of reclaimation braking if a car was following as it was very strong and did not use brake lights.

[Snagger]

2 minutes ago, missingsid said:

When I test drove a Mitsubishi PHEV the salesman told me not to use the highest rate of reclaimation braking if a car was following as it was very strong and did not use brake lights.

I'm sure it's effective, but it's all relative and it wouldn't be strong like strong disc braking.  However, moderate braking with no warning to drivers behind is going to cause excitement, let alone heavy braking.  It does seem a bit of a design flaw if regen braking doesn't bring up the lights.

[missingsid]

3 minutes ago, Snagger said:

I'm sure it's effective, but it's all relative and it wouldn't be strong like strong disc braking.  However, moderate braking with no warning to drivers behind is going to cause excitement, let alone heavy braking.  It does seem a bit of a design flaw if regen braking doesn't bring up the lights.

Elsewhere I said this I got a reply that current ones don't do this now?

[Snagger]

2 hours ago, Cynic-al said:

Agree compressed air is very inefficient but in a congested city in India there should be enough sun to run the compressors so no emissions from power stations or the vehicles apart from heat and noise and it reduces smog which is their main problem. Also much cheaper and less environmentally damaging per vehicle install than battery and quicker to recharge so the efficiency becomes secondary so long as they can get the range they need without having such big tanks that the vehicle is too big and heavy or so high pressure that they would go into space in an accident. Then again atleast you would keep the road flowing

You'd be surprised at how much haze and smog pervades the whole sub-continent.  There is plenty of glare at sea level, but lux intensity is significantly reduced.

[Bowie69]

12 minutes ago, Snagger said:

I'm sure it's effective, but it's all relative and it wouldn't be strong like strong disc braking.  

Honestly, with a brushless motor you would be easily able to lock all four wheels up.

[Snagger]

Wow.  I thought you might need to apply reverse current to get hard braking.  I think I'd still like hydraulic brakes, even smaller reserve brakes, as a backup, but that is probably due to psychological comfort than genuine reliability figures, if that was for wheel mounted motors.  For a single motor, though, there is no way I'd ever accept a single point of retadation; if it fails, you have nothing, like having the brake pedal shear off in a conventional car.

[Bowie69]

I agree a second way to slow yourself down would be good, something like a handbrake

[Snagger]

Dont forget that modern hydraulic brakes act in two or more circuits, and the likelihood of any failure that would knock out all of them is very small  - it's really just the pedal and input rod of the master cylinder that are shared, the rest being independent, but still a hand brake is required.  LR get away with a single drum hand brake because of how the drive system works, while most cars need two braking units for the hand brake.  Either way, there is lots of redundancy built in, and those shared components are generally simple and robust.  I still wouldn't be happy with a single electric motor providing all normal braking and a LR style reserve brake.  I suspect any hand brake would be more like the electric hand brakes on modern vehicles, too, with electric actuation - that in itself mandates a hydraulic or mechanical backup.

[FridgeFreezer]

Little video tour found here:

https://jalopnik.com/watch-me-climb-all-over-and-through-the-bollinger-b1-el-1820920284

[Ex Member]

You can see the chassis, drivetrain and suspension here: http://www.fourwheeler.com/news/1705-bollinger-drops-first-official-photo-of-interior/

[deep]

I do like the thought behind this but it hasn't made my shopping list yet!

[jeremy996]

A video on "Fully Charged" with Robert Llewellyn. A big battery version would fit my life 98% of the time.

 

[Cynic-al]

Once your over the looks they've actually put some really useful features in it. It can carry and 8x4 sheet, long stock and has a hidden locking compartment which is always a theft problem with estates. Locking diffs. An electric power supply point. It's the sort of real world useful stuff that the big players ignore these days for phone integration and bubble wrap on the doors. 

[deep]

The limited range and difficulties charging it do limit the appeal but still, wow!  I love practical design and this epitomises that.  I hope it does really well for them.

[V8 Freak]

Coming out of the closet....

We have a milk float.... White Nissan Leaf 30Kw (Black Edition...)

I commute 24 miles each way to work and don’t drive it for economy... I charge up daily in work and only charge it home if I need to.
(Effectively free fuel...)

Real world range travelling within the speed limits is up to 100 miles . (Further at 50 mph than you get at a constant 70 mph as you would expect)

It really accelerates fast and will typically keep with or beat the average 2.0 eurobox to 70..... (Around 8 seconds 0 - 60)

Harvesting on deceleration, as mentioned above, slows the car down quite a lot but doesn’t put the brake lights on... I’m very wary that I slow down a lot faster than other drivers might expect.

At motorway services using a 50 amp DC charger I can get an 80% charge in 45 minutes... Time for a bio break and a coffee....

The infrastructure is unreliable at present. On the occasions I’ve needed to charge at motorway services, one of the chargers has not been working.

Using the Milk Float for my commute saves me money. I pay a monthly lease and insure it. Pretty much no servicing... Tyres will wear but hoping to get 20k from the front and more from the back....

The fuel I’m not using in the 90, the lack of servicing of the 90 and reduced insurance annually due to lower mileage is covering the cost of the Milk Float based on 12k miles per year commute.

I’ve only done a few long journeys so far, but we didn’t get the car for long journeys in reality, so not really worried about the weaknesses in the infrastructure at present.

The current estimates are that the current infrastructure (Not sure if it was also capacity) in the UK National Grid could sustain 15 million EV’s now. I’m sure there were some caveats there to... Charging off-peak overnight etc.

There are less than 250k EV’s on the roads at present.

If you were to consider a Bolinger for a farm vehicle, the capacity would be more than enough for average daily use.

It would probably be ok for the Chelsea Taxi role too, but as soon as you use it for longer journeys, you have to plan your routes, plan stops, build in charge time etc.

When EV’s have a real world range of 350 miles with a charge time under 30 minutes and an infrastructure similar to the current fuel network they will be come a real consideration for a lot of people.

 

[lo-fi]

I'm waiting for Tesla to start manufacturing the right hand drive Model 3 next year, so I guess I'm out of the closet too. Kinda. 

I did similar sums to V8 Freak, and figured that the mileage I do, I can have a lovely car instead of getting shafted for fuel and be no worse off. Rare I do more than 150 miles a day, so I'm perfectly happy with the 215 miles the base model gives, and some of my customers even have charging points already anyway. Also a supercharger a few miles up the road, and I've got very cheap overnight electric with economy 7, so I'm pretty much covered every which way. 

I really like the look of that off roader, though. Some great thought gone into  that. Let's hope to see even more innovation that direction! 

[miketomcat]

But how much does it cost to recharge if you pay for it. Both quick and over night/day charge have to be paid for even if it isn't you some how much is it and is it that much cheaper than a euro box?

Mike

[lo-fi]

To charge a Tesla 85kWh from totally flat, it's about £6.50 at domestic rates. Less on economy 7. That's very few pennies for two hundred odd miles! As V8 pointed out, servicing costs are also much less. There's a bit of motor coolant that probably wants changing every few years and some transmission oil, which may well be a lubricated for life job. Possibly a few other bits I'm overlooking. No clutch to wear out, oil, filters, cat, cam belt, dpf, dmf..... Once you start looking at it, you realise just how low the component count is in the powertrain. 

The flip side is, the batteries don't last forever. But... I grilled the dealership about this, and they actually had some figures on battery degradation. 20k a year with occasional supercharging, expect to lose less than 1% of charge capacity a year. 10k for a fresh battery pack, but the batteries carry an eight year warranty. I have to admit, I was gobsmacked that answers were readily available. You normally end up with "you what?" when asking technical scruff like that these days.

I'd call myself a petrol head (you've heard my V8, Mike ), but I'm excited.